Crooks reportedly trick football club into paying them £1.75m transfer fee

Italian football club Lazio has reportedly been tricked into sending a £1.75 instalment for defender Stefan de Vrij's transfer to online fraudsters.

Crooks convinced Lazio over email into sending the money to a bank account in Holland that they controlled, rather than to de Vrij's former club Feyenoord, according to Italian newspaper Il Tempo. The email, asking for payment, reportedly had the Feyenoord club badge.

After Dutch club Feyenoord insisted it did not receive the money for the centre back - who joined Lazio for £6.8 million in 2014 - and had no knowledge of the email, prosecutors began looking into the case.

Frederik Mennes, senior manager, market and security strategy at Vasco, says: "Criminals are constantly adapting their methods and improving the effectiveness of their attacks so organisations cannot afford to rest on their laurels.

"They must constantly invest in understanding the threats and vulnerabilities they could be exposed to. For example, this incident was facilitated via email which is notoriously insecure and frequently used by fraudsters."

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Comments: (1)

Lu Zurawski - Lu Zurawski - London 29 March, 2018, 16:05

1 like

Wow - this is taken the need for "Confirmation of Payee" capabilities to a whole new level. But there may be a better solution for the world of football. If only there was some kind of secure but open global ledger thing which could be used to track footballing assets. Maybe someone will invent such a thing one day.